What is POI data?

Points of Interest (i.e. Place of Interest) data is a geographical representation of a physical location on a map. The most common POI types include public areas (parks, metros), commercial or residential locations (like retail stores or apartment buildings), and landmarks (like museums or parks).

Why is POI data important?

You might not be aware, but we use POI data all the time. Every time you order food via your favorite app, use a ride-hailing service or check out a new restaurant on Google Maps – you are actually using POI data curated by specialized companies.Apart from the B2C use cases mentioned above, businesses can also use POI data to analyse trends, patterns and more, to come up with new strategies. Regardless of whether you are an advertising agency looking for a better way to plan your media campaigns or a hedge fund choosing if you should go long or short on a stock option – POI data will be the underlying factor helping you make the right decision.

Admittedly, implementation of geospatial business intelligence (BI) in commerce, financial institutions, ad-tech, real estate and other industries, has never been more vital or accessible than it is today, and POI data has become a critical component of it.Geospatial Business Intelligence powers organizations to gain an understanding of what is happening within or around their locations of interest; it contextualizes a location and provides better insights on a customer, a competitor or a market level, and helps to identify specific challenges the company is facing. These insights can only be drawn out with the help of high-quality and scalable POI datasets. Analyzing this information can help you fine-tune your business operations with an intelligent, data-driven strategy.

How is POI data used for enhanced contextualization?

Using rich attributes of POI data and complementing them with alternative datasets such as anonymized mobility patterns, demographic data, stock information, accessibility data, transaction data and etc, enables multiple companies and organizations to fuel their data models with granular information for a more representative analysis of the location in question.Some examples of the direct applications of POI data for enhanced contextualization include site performance analysis, urban planning, and competitive benchmarking, to name a few.

How are different industries using POI data today?

Given the current Covid-19 crisis, POI data can be used by market research companies to analyze the impact that the pandemic has had on retail outlets across the globe. Analyzing data over the past 18 months can give researchers context about the closing rate of specific outlets to better assess just how drastic of an impact the pandemic has had on global, regional and local franchises worldwide.Brick-and-mortar retailers can map out relevant locations along with data attributes like mobility or popularity index based on footfall analysis to derive competitive insights into store performance. Other use cases of POI data could be for commercial real estate firms seeking to facilitate site selection and conduct trade area analysis. Additionally, AdTech companies that work on location-based targeting use geofencing techniques to create virtual parameters around their areas of interest. This allows them to catch their target audience’s attention at the right time and place. You can read more about the different use cases of POI data in our blog post here.

Why is POI data relevant to you?

In conclusion, POI data fuels a large variety of use cases across different sectors; from retail to advertising, to investment management, urban planning, and much more. Regardless of what your role is, if you strive to help your business improve its bottom line, then POI data is certainly worth considering.Not sure where to start? Talk to one of the data experts to learn how POI data can be relevant for you to scale your business.